A Placebo-controlled randomized trial found many reported side effects from statins are not actually attributable to the cholesterol-lowering drugs.
"[Most of these effects] occurred anyway when patients were administered placebo," the investigators said in a European Society of Cardiology news release.
A meta-analysis looked at more than 80,000 patients.
"Patients and doctors need clear reliable information about benefits and risks to make informed decisions," the researchers wrote, the news release reported.
The team analyzed 28 randomized controlled trials (RCTs); they used a statistical model to calculate the increase of risk for a number of side effects in both the statin and placebo arms of the study.
Some of the side effects looked at in the study were "nausea, renal disorder, myopathy and rhabdomyolysis (muscle breakdown), muscle ache, insomnia, fatigue, and gastrointestinal disturbance," the news release reported. The only side effect that was actually found to be associated with statin use was diabetes mellitus. About one in five diabetes cases in the trials was believed to have been directly related to the statins.
The researchers found serious adverse effects in 14.6 percent of the patients taking statins and 14.9 receiving the placebo in primary prevention trials as well as and in 9.9 percent of patients on statins and 11.2 percent on placebo in secondary prevention trials.
"We clearly found that many patients in these trials - whose patients are usually well motivated volunteers who didn't know if they were getting a real or placebo tablet - that many did report side effects while taking placebo. In the general population, where patients are being prescribed a statin for an asymptomatic condition, why would it be surprising that even higher rates of side effects are reported?" Doctor Judith Finegold from the National Heart and Lung Institute, said in the news release. "Most people in the general population, if you repeatedly ask them a detailed questionnaire, will not feel perfectly well in every way on every day. Why should they suddenly feel well when taking a tablet after being warned of possible adverse effects?"
